Curb Your Enthusiasm’s seventh season has a running storyline of creator/star Larry David attempting to woo back his wife Cheryl by orchestrating a cast reunion of the classic 90s sitcom Seinfeld. Seinfeld was the show that made David the rich, aimless wanderer as portrayed in Curb who has subsequently spent the past decade flirting around occasional creative forays. In the second season of Curb he pitches a meta-show with Seinfeld alumni Julia ‘Elaine’ Louis-Dreyfus (after falling out with original star Jason ‘George’ Alexander over locations for their meetings) playing an actor typecast by a role she’d had in an extremely successful sitcom. For the most part, though, Curb Larry has spent his time wrestling with the minutiae of LA etiquette and explaining away bizarre actions as varied as hiring a prostitute in order to use the car-pool lane to complimenting a father on the size of his young son’s penis. It seems fitting that the Seinfeld reunion so often called for since the record breaking yet controversial finale over ten years ago has occurred as a show-within-a-show. Jerry Seinfeld and the rest of the cast merely play supporting roles to the man who had run the original sitcom from behind the scenes for most of its nine-year existence.
In Curb’s third episode of the current season, after David attempts to convince Jerry to the merits of the reunion artistically, Jerry notes that this pitch is unlike David and his usually high standards. In particular he notes David’s previous disdain for lesser shows that didn’t match his “aesthetic standards”. After Seinfeld began those standards have indirectly led many comedy observers suggesting the traditional sitcom be declared either an exhausted or dead art-form.
Cheers proudly reminded the viewer in every opening that the show was “filmed before a live studio audience”. David seemed to take no pride in the fact that Seinfeld, which followed Cheers during that show’s final season, was also filmed before a live studio audience. Whilst Seinfeld had used the traditional three-walled sets and three-camera set-up it was against David’s initial wishes. Oftentimes during Seinfeld television in general, and sitcom in particular, is dismissed by the characters on-screen as almost entirely without merit. The values David held so dearly for the show, and insisted upon from the first meeting with executives, can be seen from the start in how the premise, filming and writing removed the previously held requirements of courting the studio audience, the needs for characters to have strong bonds of unity and the use of an emotional sucker-punch towards the end of an episode.
Seinfeld’s initial idea challenged the sitcom norm as the characters of the show weren’t being placed in an instantly recognisable situation for a situation comedy. Usually a sitcom would be based around a family, a work place or a close collection of friends or neighbours. Instead Seinfeld was a premise-led show and the premise was simply ‘where does a stand-up comedian draw inspiration from when writing material?’
Jerry Seinfeld is usually held up as the standard-bearer for the “have you ever noticed…” observational strand of stand-up comedy that is easy to mock but difficult to master. Whilst the edict oft-quoted about the show was that there would be “no hugs, no learning”, Jerry himself was constantly learning as the episode progressed. He was finding new angles to approach aspects of society as presented to him throughout before reaching his conclusions in front of a nameless audience at his regular comedy club explains his lesson learnt at the end of every episode. It’s only in this club setting that Seinfeld makes concessions to an audience, and the audience is one that is shown on-screen and exists within the sitcom’s own world.
After a halting start with low ratings, both in viewers and test screening scores, the show began to build a following. Michael Richards’ Kramer, by far the most outlandish character in both appearance and performance, became the first breakout star; his trademark sliding entrances to Jerry’s apartment started to be greeted with loud cheers from the audience. Whilst contemporary shows like Married with Children encouraged each character’s entrance be met with whoops and cheers David, hating the interruption to the action and unnatural stance of the actors waiting for quiet, seemed to once again try to ignore the fact that Seinfeld was a network prime-time sitcom by quickly requesting, or rather demanding, that the applause be stopped.
As the series continued the stand-up segments decreased in frequency. They initially acted as a Greek chorus as an episode progressed, then as bookends and finally were eliminated all together. Whilst Seinfeld was never “a show about nothing”, as is often used to describe it, each episode essentially became a collection of four stories running in parallel. At the start of each episode all four characters were sent off like spinning tops, occasionally colliding but essentially travelling their own path till they all collapse at the end. David would have episodes be built around something as simplistic as being lost in a car park, waiting for a table at a restaurant or visiting a car dealership with each of the characters carrying their own personal story to a logical conclusion as derived from the situation instead of being forced into it; even when the different strands became entangled towards the end of an episode the reasoning for that felt organic and natural to the separate stories.
Seinfeld writers often recall that an episode’s story was born from a personal experience or a story that they had read being mentioned in passing after having a series of original ideas rejected by Jerry or David on the grounds of being too obvious or clichéd. Instead of having a show feel too written and not rooted in any sort of personal truth they seemed to appreciate and strive for authenticity above all else; that shone through in the writing – even if the truth often seemed more absurd than standard fiction. As a result, real life incidents formed the basis of classic episodes such as “The Soup Nazi” and “The Contest” (that all titles from the second season on would be entitled with a simple definitive is another example of the stripped-down aesthetic principles of David and the show in general). In the alternative Seinfeld reality he and George write a pilot for a sitcom called Jerry where his relationships are replicated on-screen with actors playing George, Elaine and Kramer. Whereas David and Jerry trusted their instincts, George and Jerry second-guess themselves and quickly surrender to network demands, creating a convoluted “Jerry gets a butler through court order” storyline that has no ring of truth to it whatsoever and Jerry is not commissioned for a full series.
Conversely, the dismissal of sitcom conventions allowed more surreal flights of fancy as the show went on. If the audience accepted the artifice of the staging it would also accept events of a bizarre nature happening within this artificial reality – steps that most sitcoms dare not take due to beliefs in realism despite already abandoning naturalism in their setting. The ultimate control the writers had over their characters was played with and odd interventions of fate peppered throughout suggested that these characters in Seinfeld were not fully-rounded people but playthings for an unseen, mischievous, occasionally malevolent, master. Above all else what is funny received precedence over everything else.
Exemplifying the “no hugs, no learning” creed the supporting cast, which was very small for a sitcom, didn’t particularly care for one another and only stayed together as no-one else would tolerate them for long. George was a high school friend who Jerry seems to have kept in contact with solely for confirming his constant superiority over someone else in his life. Kramer was simply Jerry’s neighbour who forces his presence on Jerry and anyone else he meets through sheer ignorance of social convention. Elaine was Jerry’s former long-term girlfriend in a relationship that seems an exception since all other dalliances for both rarely lasted more than one episode. The usual will they-won’t they romances is parodied over the years, with a suggestion in the finale of the expected declarations a true love for one another being quickly quashed.
In the American version of The Office Ricky Gervais’ David Brent character was translated into Steve Carell’s Michael Scott. Whilst Brent had to wait until the last ten minutes of the final episode to receive any form of redemption Scott will usually be forgiven for any transgressions by the end of every episode. Brent’s lasciviousness and malicious streak are also toned down and replaced by a more child-like lust and selfishness in Scott. This is not a slight on the US Office, in many ways it is funnier than its inspiration, but it has clearly chosen a mindset of redeeming features needing to be more prevalent in their leading characters to sustain the longevity required for success in the American market, whereas the BBC original had the luxury of a mere fourteen episode-long existence. Again, Seinfeld resisted that tenet of American comedy and had four characters that seem to revel in the misery of those around them and make no attempt to amend or admit to their own faults. These are characters that will refuse to resuscitate a man on grounds of personal discomfort, shove women and children out of the way to escape a burning house, kidnap a neighbour’s dog for being too loud and tell a woman they need a nose job.
Every single convention and rule of the sitcom as lay down by predecessors and network executives fearful of change was broken, ignored, ridiculed or worked around. David and Jerry were essentially a perfect blend of bloody-minded stubbornness and cool diplomacy. The stories of David walking off-stage within moments of his stand-up sets, excoriating the audience as he left, suggested he was a comedian who never particularly felt the need for validation from a group of strangers that his ideas were funny. The filtering of David’s intentions through the voice of Jerry and others led to an air of subversion throughout the show.
That subversion was finally exposed in the series’ finale. The dark streak that ran throughout Seinfeld became centre-stage in the controversial series finale. It was one of the most-watched television events of all time and written by a returning David who had left two seasons earlier. Again, instead of going the tried and tested way of emotional goodbyes, tear-jerking sentimentality and general self-congratulation, David knew better. He was aware that, as loved as the show was, the characters themselves were by their very nature unlovable and over the previous nine seasons had left a wealth of emotionally broken and morally disgusted people in their wake. These four didn’t deserve commendation, they deserved condemnation. Observational humour is even criticised as the cast watched on as an obese man was being robbed. Instead of intervening or alerting authorities they filmed the event and provided running commentary, mocking the victim whilst they did. That emotional distance that was the trademark of this show about “nothing” is finally concluded to be cowardice and cold-heartedness; the “nothing” of the show perhaps only referring to their lack of humanity. Even as they are sent to prison for their breaking of a “Good Samaritan” law they accept it with a generally blasé attitude and less annoyance than previous reactions to someone “re-gifting” or accusations of “double-dipping”. Perhaps the audience were being condemned as complicit in their enjoyment of these escapades and this would explain the uproar that it was greeted with by some, and referenced by Alexander recently in Curb.
Just as Seinfeld seemed to defy all rules made for sitcoms by the network commissioners and executives through to the bitter end, those same people in power seem to have equally bitterly defied taking any note of the one show that broke all their rules becoming the most successful sitcom of all time. Instead, we have continued to get studio audience sitcoms with perfect families, lessons learnt, convoluted stories and obvious meddling from executives and focus groups.
The direct influence of Seinfeld at times seems non-existent, an aberration that had never worn obvious influences on its own sleeve. In the first season or so of Friends it was clear that the pitch had been along the lines of “Seinfeld with the cast of
Others such as The Drew Carey Show seemed to share some similarities in character dynamic, but generally the argument could be made that, at least on a superficial level, nothing has changed. Whilst studio audience sitcoms have subsequently come out of decent-to-good quality (Will & Grace, Black Books, 3rd Rock from the Sun) none have the air of a classic that will spoken of in the same revered tones as such predecessors as Frasier, Blackadder or, of course, Seinfeld.
All great sitcoms created since Seinfeld ended, on both sides of the Atlantic, have been single-camera location-shot programmes; examples being both versions of The Office, 30 Rock, Peep Show, Arrested Development, Spaced and Curb. The reason might be that, whether conscious of it or not, the creators of those shows know that in its traditional form the sitcom has been perfected – stripped down to its most raw components and made to function in purest efficiency. If it cannot be improved upon the challenge is to take the genre down different avenues and explore new possibilities. Whilst Seinfeld cannot claim full credit for showing those possibilities – a portion must be afforded to The Simpsons and Garry Shandling’s post-modern audience inclusive It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and subsequent single-camera HBO original The Larry Sanders Show – it did expose the limitations of another one; whilst Simpsons and Shandling pointed to the future Seinfeld made a clear delineation between that and the past. Just as how after The Jazz Singer all subsequent silent films’ were immediately exposed in their limitations; after Seinfeld all sitcoms made now without a fourth wall will seem intentionally obtuse and as hollow as canned laughter.
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